4| The Financial Strategy that Killed the Methodist Movement
“If Methodists would give all they can, then all would have enough.” — John Wesley
This is part four of the Boxed Wine & Bad Ideas series on how we killed a church movement and how we can get it back.
Generosity
“Earn all you can, save all you can, and give all you can are the three basic points of John Wesley’s famous sermon entitled, “The Use of Money.” Wesley made note in 1789 that the Methodists of his day were ignoring the third part of his sermon.”¹
John Wesley was incredibly generous and intentional with his personal giving to meet needs and serve the poor. One biographer, Henry Moore, estimated that he gave away some £30,000 over the course of his life. (approximately $8 million today) Wesley would raise funds from preaching sermons, the Societies, or his publishing house to meet needs among the poor in London. He founded medical clinics, distributed food and clothes, started charitable schools, and more.
When looking back at the minutes of the Methodist movement and early profit & loss statements, however, it appears that Wesley’s personal generosity never translated to the structure of the movement outside of its financial investment in the Kingswood School. Instead, one of the major financial crises of the movement came in the 1760s. What was the problem that disturbed the balance?
“At the national level, though the Wesleyan Methodist Connexion had a central staff and at least rudimentary financial systems from the mid 1740s, financial reports date only from the mid 1760s, and suggest that thereafter — although receipts were broadly on a rising trend — income fluctuated, partly in response to the priority given by successive Conferences to fundraising. The money was redistributed mainly in grants, initially to circuits in need, and some if not most of the money was probably intended to subsidize the construction of chapels.”²
The chapels, however, were not the sole problem that tipped the financial scales. Rather, one of the key indicators of when the movement began to solidify its structure and move toward its life as an institution was when the itinerant preachers went full-time, started getting married and having families, and the movement was undertaking a majority of its chapel construction projects. By the time of Wesley’s death, “over 400 full-time preachers were perhaps delivering, in broad terms, some 150,000 sermons a year, in around 4,000 different locations, at an annual cost of some £40,000”. As a result, the financial burdens of maintaining the needs of the movement greatly increased and almost jeopardized the success of the whole.
So what can we learn from the financing of the Methodist movement?
First, the implementation and operation of Wesley’s itinerant preachers played a huge part in the growth and sustainability of the movement. Norris provides a table outlining the estimated costs of Wesleyan Methodist itinerant preachers from 1750 to 1800, which effectively tripled in its average cost per preacher over the 50-year span.
Part of the reason for this increase was because the movement began with single guys preaching part-time. However, as the movement continued to grow from an initial 14,000 members in 1750 to over 110,000 members in 1800, the preachers went from part-time to full-time, got married, and had kids. By 1800, there would have been one preacher for every 262 people who considered themselves part of Wesley’s movement, which tells me that there must have been a whole army of lay people carrying the same message and passion to the world around them. This was not a movement built exclusively on the backs of the clergy. Rather, the clergy infrastructure increased to support the experience of revival in these different churches and towns.
Secondly, in 1770, the real emphasis on the construction of chapels began with the Wesleyan Methodists going from 146 to 958 chapels in the span of 30 years. That average pace would be two chapels per month for 30 years.
Interestingly enough, the membership number did not keep pace with the chapel number. The construction of chapels often came following the power of revival in a new town or place in England. When the buildings finished, however, often the revival did, too. Meaning, there were individual circuits left to manage the debt of a new building that wasn’t being filled with people. As a result, the surrounding circuit would need to gather money and send funds to support that new building.
The building was not the point. The power was in the preaching and the people. Yet, the debt of the movement continued to increase to the point of almost bringing the entire thing to a financial crisis with the total debt almost touching £200,000. But how can revival be sustained without a place to gather?
Lastly, the power in Wesley’s generosity was his proximity to the need. There are countless stories of him encountering particular needs, rounding up support, and even moving funds from his New Room publishing house or his personal accounts to meet them at an impressive scale. One of the curiosities of Wesley’s generosity, however, is the question of why it never translates to the actual budget of the movement as a whole outside of the Kingswood school. You’ll see repayment of loans, investment in the Kingswood school, preacher’s retirement, and other general expenditures, but not a fund to intentional, responsive generosity.
Here’s the problem I see: following Wesley’s death in 1791, the structure of his movement does not reflect the heart of what he protected when it comes to generosity. In 1800, the church spent more funds (£1,965) repaying loans for chapels than designated to educating poor children at Kingswood (£1,183). Furthermore, £1,813 was transferred from the publishing house to cover the general expenses of running the Church as a whole.
Just 2 years before Wesley’s death, he preached this fiery sermon at his followers:
“Who regards those solemn words, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth?” Of the three rules which are laid down on this head, in the sermon on “The Mammon of Unrighteousness,” you may find many that observe the First rule, namely, “Gain all you can.” You may find a few that observe the Second, “Save all you can:”’ But how many have you found that observe the Third rule, “Give all you can?” Have you reason to believe, that five hundred of these are to be found among fifty thousand Methodists? And yet nothing can be more plain, than that all who observe the two first rules without the third, will be twofold more the children of hell than ever they were before.”³
Ouch.
So what can we learn from the financing of the Methodist movement? Chapels are not the problem. Paying your pastors a living wage is not the problem. Full-time clergy is not the problem. Projects are not the problem. The problem is when any one thing becomes a higher priority than the people they were made for. The problem is when anything becomes higher than the mission itself. Therefore, generosity, Kingdom expansion, and love for people should be the driving force in how we steward our finances and build our budgets.
The rapidly expanding movement became an institution. It forgot the heartbeat of its original idea of radically generous stewardship. This consequently took potent, flowing wine and filled up the storehouse rather than giving it away.
